What just happened? ASRock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, and MSI revealed more details about their upcoming high-end X670 and X670E motherboards. Some of the most notable features include PCIe 5.0 and USB4 support, extreme power delivery designs, and wider M.2-25110 slots. However, the companies didn’t mention anything about their B650 motherboards, suggesting that these might not launch at the same time as AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors next month.
At AMD’s latest Meet the Experts webinar, board partners showed off some of the features and designs of their upcoming X670 and X670E motherboards. As a reminder, AMD’s AM5 platform will support CPUs with a TDP of up to 170W, 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes (x16 for graphics cards, x8 general purpose lanes used for storage and USB4/Thunderbolt 4 controllers, x4 to connect to the chipset), up to four DisplayPort 2 or HDMI 2.1 outputs, and dual-channel DDR5 memory.
ASRock only revealed one new model, the X670E PG Lightning, but also talked about some of the new features coming to their X670E motherboards, including USB4 ports with 27W fast charging, eight-layer PCBs, and an actively-cooled M.2 heatsink to keep PCIe 5.0 SSDs from overheating.
Asus showed off two of its upcoming motherboards, including the flagship ROG Crosshair X670E Extreme and the high-end ROG Crosshair X670E Hero. They will feature impressive VRM solutions with 110A power stages (20+2-phase design for the Extreme, 18+2-phase for the Hero), five M.2 slots each (with some being on separate add-in cards), and high-end audio solutions based on the ALC4082 codec.
On the rear panel, the Extreme has nine USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps), two USB4 capable of 40Gbps, 10GbE and 2.5GbE jacks, audio ports, and Wi-Fi 6E antenna connectors. The Hero trades the 10GbE jack for an HDMI port.
Meanwhile, Biostar’s X670E Valkyrie will have a 22-phase VRM design with 105A power stages, two PCIe 5.0 x16 slots, and four M.2 slots (with two supporting PCIe 5.0).
Gigabyte showcased four motherboards, including the X670E Aorus Xtreme, X670E Aorus Master, X670 Aorus Pro AX, and X670 Aorus Elite AX. All models will come with at least one wider M.2-25110 slot and a THB_U4 Thunderbolt header. It’s worth noting that the X670E boards will each have one PCIe 5.0 x16 slot for graphics cards, while the X670 variants will use PCIe 4.0 instead.
MSI talked about four motherboards: the flagship MEG X670E Godlike, MEG X670E Ace, MPG X670E Carbon Wi-Fi, and Pro X670-P Wi-Fi. The Godlike will have the best VRM solution out of the bunch, with a 24+2+1-phase design and 105A power stages for the Vcore. Other notable features include MSI’s new screwless M.2 heatsink and a PCIe adapter card that supports two M.2-25110 SSDs with a PCIe 5.0 x4 interface.
These motherboards will likely release next month together with AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series processors. The cheaper B650-based boards might arrive at a later time, considering the companies haven’t announced anything about them so far.